Don't Forget
by fixing what the author broke
Summary: "You chose him. And to hold on to a certain feeling, you sacrificed the world." Bittersweet malec.


**Disclaimer: I do not own the characters in The Mortal Instruments. Most of this story is inspire by the book The History of Love. Not the plot but some of this story has snippets of the book fitted and edited into the story. So I'm neither Nicole Krauss or Cassie Clare.**

**About my other story, I'm just waiting until I really want to write it or it's not going to be as good as I want it to be.**

**I hope you enjoy this story. I just wanted to make a bittersweet, sort of sad malec fic. So make sure to review and tell me what you think.**

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Maybe the first time you saw him you were at his front door. He was standing there, as the first person to see you as what you were and not as what you were not. Maybe he was the first person to see you. Or the first person to care enough to notice. He was standing there without a care. Or he was watching you with the amused glint that later you would discover never seemed to leave his eyes. And a part of you was drawn to him, and a part of you resisted-wanting to keep hiding, go back to the institute, remain uncomplicated. In the same breath, part of you thought: Please don't look at me. If you don't, I can still turn away. And part of you thought: Look at me.

Maybe you made a mistake. He looked down at you and told you he loved you. He also said it didn't change anything. "It was a mistake," you had tried to say. But the cruel thing was none of it felt like a mistake. Maybe the mistake was that you trusted him. Or that he trusted you. But you had never really trusted each other at all.

You'd kept your love for him as alive as the night that you had met him. You wanted to preserve the rush that he brought you. You wanted to live in one single moment forever. You thought, to paint a leaf, you have to sacrifice the whole landscape. It might seem like you're limiting yourself at first, but after a while you realize while doing so you have a better chance of holding on to a certain feeling of the universe. But you did not choose a leaf. You chose him. And to hold on to a certain feeling, you sacrificed the world.

You had sat in your room for a week after it happened. You felt denial course through you and you found yourself dialling his number again and again like a mantra. You thought that maybe if he forgave you, you wouldn't mess up again. How could you? You knew now. But you forgot to remind yourself that it wasn't simply black or white, your fault or his fault. He denied you as he denied your mortality. And as you denied his immortality.

Maybe you thought it was going to be solved by love. But it never is. Being close - as close as you can get - to him only makes clear that impassable distance between you. But if being in love only made people lonelier, why would everyone want it so much? You thought of the illusion. You fall in love; you think you'll never be lonely again.

And if the man who once upon a time had promised a boy that he'd never fall in love with another as long as he lived kept his promise, it wasn't because he was stubborn or even loyal. He possibly couldn't help it.

So you sit in your bedroom and remember. People said things were larger than life. But how could anything be larger than life itself. You used to say his love made you feel larger than life but you realise as such a young boy you had not yet experienced life so how could you compare the unknown to something barely understandable. How could one love, no matter how true and honest it was, be larger than all that ever was, ever is, or ever could be? But it was.

When you were together through the nights with the warm wind drifting through the windows of his bedroom he often whispered to you of his fears.

And he feared the unknown. You thought at first that it was quite ridiculous to fear something that was uncovered with time. But there were secrets that immortality held back. He did not know what happened to the people he loved. They passed on while he lived. He did not know what was to be expected after life and he'd had all the time in the world to think about it. What was he to believe? His lovers simply ceased to exist? But would that bring security or impending loneliness that grew more and more desperate over the years?

He never told you.

You always knew how it would end. You would die saving someone else. You could never be remembered for that though. People remembered bravery. They remembered things that were worth remembering. Many people would die sacrificing themselves for others. You would be one of many. So who would remember the shy Lightwood boy? Perhaps the warlock would. But you believed he'd already forgotten.

You'd tried to be forgiving, and yet, there were times in your life when anger got the better of you. Ugliness turned you inside out. There was a certain satisfaction in bitterness. You felt that if love didn't make the difference then the hate that was digging its poisonous roots into you would. The bitterness and loneliness, the self-loathing and the self-pity, it was all standing outside, and you invited it in.

But you soon let go. You were so tired.

Your brother had gone to Magnus' apartment and they had argued. They had yelled about wanting and not wanting. About trust and betrayal. But your brother had argued for what was never there in the first place. For you and Magnus had deluded yourself into the pretence that your love for each other could conquer such foundations of stability as trust.

Magnus had told you of his fears but you had never shared your own. You lived in the shadow of others and you feared being forgotten.

You believed, at the end, all that's left of you are your possessions. Perhaps that's why you never were able to throw anything away. Perhaps that's why you hoarded the world: with the hope that when you died, the sum total of your things would suggest a life larger than the one you lived.

You had sat in your room for the longest time, until it was simply unhealthy to continue. Your family had begged and Magnus agreed to come and reason with you. You believed it was out of a sense of obligation. After all, if he had left you alone at that party so long ago you would still be content. If he had never made you fall in love with him then it wouldn't hurt so much. But he did and you were left to pick up the pieces. You didn't know what you were trying to put back together. He had already left you.

He sat outside your door for hours. "Come out!" he would say. "Please," would be added as if pleading would make the difference. Silence filled the night, while he waited for you to speak. "I can't," you finally said, and it was true. He hadn't answered your calls for weeks. He had pretended not to be home when you passed. He had ignored your siblings when you were injured. He wanted to distance himself. But when it came down to it, he still cared for you. "Why?" he had cried. The lights were out and the floorboards creaked as he repositioned himself, ear against the door. "Because then you'll stop asking for me."


End file.
